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50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released.

I won’t be celebrating.

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students’ grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

The authors won’t be hurt by these critical remarks. They are long dead. William Strunk was a professor of English at Cornell about a hundred years ago, and E.B. White, later the much-admired author of Charlotte’s Web, took English with him in 1919, purchasing as a required text the first edition, which Strunk had published privately. After Strunk’s death, White published a New Yorker article reminiscing about him and was asked by Macmillan to revise and expand Elements for commercial publication. It took off like a rocket (in 1959) and has sold millions.

I know it’s not Mothers’ Day all over the world. Sue me, I’m in the U.S. and I didn’t even realise it was this weekend here until Friday leaving work, okay?

Anyway, Love or Lustis 100% off anywhere I could set it. Ready or Not is 50% off in all the same places. Oh, did I mention this sale is going to run all week?

As usual I’ve too little practical control over Nook and Kindle pricing. Amazon will probably eventually price match me, but I can’t say when. Kindles and Nooks can read the files you’d get from All Romance eBooks, so I recommend users of those devices consider that source.

I know, a Lesbian Teen Romance, what kind of Mother’s Day gift is that?

I don’t know. I suppose I was thinking about all of those lesbian mothers out there who in the past year have seen their lives validated and vindicated somewhat in … is it 38 states, plus DC and Puerto Rico now? Some people prefer YA/Teen fiction; I mean some of the best new books I’ve read in the past decade was the Harry Potter series. Maybe it could be a way for some of my lesbian/bi female readers to prime their mother(s) for letting her/them know about the new fiancée and future daughter-in-law they’ll be meeting today? Give me a break, it makes more sense than some of the places out there having a sale this weekend.

And, whether you’re a mother of human kids or furry/feathered/scaly ones have a happy Mothers’ Day whether you grab a copy of my books or not.

There is no Past Tense of Terry Pratchett

I was surprised by my own mild reaction when I woke today and saw the first of many subtle tweets about Terry, though I guessed immediately what they meant. I was surprised by just how many of those tweets were also some flavor of subtle or mild or restrained. I didn’t see many all-caps primal screams or 140-character duets for Emoji and exclamation point.

Of course, I peer out at the universe through a knothole as tiny as anyone else’s and the plural of “Twitter stream anecdote” is surely not “data,” nor even a distant relation to data, nor even a part-time and barely convincing cosplay of data.

And yet I think there’s something natural and inevitable about this quiet reaction. It’s not merely that we’ve all known for some time that Terry had to be passing soon, that we’ve been forced to think about it, that he had the chance to say so much about it.

When some people die, they leave the rest of us with a sense that they’ve packed their words and warmth and hauled them along like luggage for the trip, that we can never hear from them again. Terry gave us so much of himself, though, so damned MUCH– seventy books, just for starters, and a world and its inhabitants that might as well be a religion for millions. A good religion, a useful religion. The sort where there’s always a little golden light flickering behind one of the church windows at any hour of the night, so you know there’s someone there to talk to you about anything, and they won’t have locked the doors. They won’t even have put locks on the doors. Some asshole suggested putting locks on the doors once, many years ago, and everyone else in the church carried that person out of town and threw them into a pond. That’s a Terry Pratchett sort of church. That’s a Terry Pratchett book. And he walled us in with them. He stacked them high all around us, and they’re all him, they’re all still here, and they’re going to be here so very long after you and I and everyone else reading this have gone off for a last walk WITH THE ONLY PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE WHO SPEAKS NATURALLY IN ALL CAPS AND WE DON’T REALLY MIND AT ALL, IT’S JUST THE WAY THINGS HAVE TO BE.

Terry Pratchett can die, and fuck everything for that sentence. Fuck those four words. I am feeling the cracks starting to appear in me now. I’ve lost the mildness and quiet I had this morning. But here’s the point. Terry Pratchett can die, but he can never go away. (Continued here)

Well, stress of life is coming to an end and I’m finding myself with inclination to write even as I return to having precious little time for it (day jobs suck).

I’ve found a new job, I look slightly more forward to grating my own face with a nutmeg mill than the job in question, but I might’ve found a more appealing one that, besides being no less appealing than painful self-mutilation (dare I say more appealing? Hmmm could be, I’ll hopefully get to find out) it also gets me both out of the wretched state of Georgia but also out of the south altogether! Amusing coincidence: it would put me less than 30 min from the town I geographically based Salencia’s hometown on, Estes Park; that could be fun!

I’m not yet back into Book 3. I swear, I will be by end of summer if not sooner, but I need a working break from it to get back into the swing of things. I’ll be working on some short stories and some pet projects of uncertain nature, then try to get back into my Now & Forever groove; I have to! Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m curious to see what their wedding turns out like! (I am not calling that a spoiler, I don’t even know which book it happens in and anyone who didn’t see it coming during Love or Lust clearly hasn’t been paying attention)

I’m really sorry to delay things. But I don’t believe in writing just for the sake of word count. I want quality, not quantity. I’d have thrown out so much of what might have git written these past few months and got myself so thoroughly mired in nonsense that it would only have made things worse to force the matter. Please be patient, I promise you’ll appreciate the resultant book a great deal more.

First off, my editor should be done with Ready or Notin the next 3 – 5 days. As soon as I get it I’ll be setting up pre-order on iBooks and Smashwords (the only outlets that allow it) for about 1 – 2 weeks later (it takes a bit of time for Apple to process the upload, they run pretty thorough quality checks on the file to make sure it won’t make your iPadspontaneously combust or something) during which time I’ll give it one more read through and buff.

I’m truly sorry this has taken so long. Sadly for various personal reasons (see spending a week in hospital and a month on narcotics, thereby unable to interact with my editor), various reasons related to my editor having this unfailing talent for getting terribly ill with a flu during the summer (normally, however, it’s closer to August so wasn’t strictly planned on), and the simply embarrassing number of errors in this book which slowed down the process (seriously, for Love or Lust she was able to get through nearly 2x as many pages in any given hour) it has just taken forever to edit.

This, like its predecessor, will be available in ebook and print from all the same retailers for us$3.99 for ebook and us$17.99 for print (various international pricing available proportioned based on the retail outlet in question).

Like this:

I love to hear about new books as much as the next person. And I’ve noticed that some of my readership is comprised of writers. And a simple fact of life is that some have more and others less readership than I do. Certainly it’s a given that we all have different readership.

I’ve heard of blog tours, guest bloggers, etc. And this isn’t so different as that; but a little bit, yes. Continue reading →

Like this:

You know, it’s strange. As a fan of Scifi & Fantasy stories I’ve, naturally, heard of the SFWA … hard not to given that its members seem, so often, to be the winners of the Hugo, and certainly its members would be the ones winning the Nebula (or is that the other way around? I can never recall). The SFWA never much appealed to me though.

In the mean time I’ve discovered that there are other writers’ guilds. The RWA, the MWA, and HWA to name a few.

Given that I write romance, the RWA was something I looked into. I must say … it’s significantly more impressive and … nice? Whatever the word I’m looking for, I was intrigued by it. Seriously considering joining.

Thing is, $95/yr isn’t a lot, but it is if I’m paying it for nothing. Certainly the benefits of the RWA look promising, in the ad copy and PR. That’s kind of the point of ad-copy and PR. I do, also, know that Elaine Cunningham — a personal favourite among the authors producing Forgotten Realms novels — is (or, at least, was) a member of both RWA and SFWA and had quite a lot of positive things to say about the RWA — especially as compared to the SFWA (Færie Patrol would qualify me for the SFWA in case any are wondering why I’d really care much about the SFWA beyond amusement or head shaking at the latest scandals).

In practical, rather than “this sounds good” terms — anyone know what benefits there are to joining a writers’ guild? Is there, especially for a self-published author, much use to the networking (I’ve always hated that term, don’t know why) opportunities? Anything for a shy person not wont to spending over much time in internet forums to gain? In good ol’ plain English — what is to be gained for the price of one’s dues?

Ah me, but decisions are rough — especially when one has so much caution and so little idea where to begin in researching?

A free monthly online magazine (also available in print for a small fee) starting on August 1st 2013 that will feature a Genre-By-Genre selection of extracts from up and coming independent authors. It’s a great way to read free samples of new indiebooks!

And to kick it off the folks behind the zine are hosting a huge giveaway (in case the giant image to the right here was too subtle).

A lot of awesome books will be showcased — you can, in fact, see Love or Lust‘s cover there next to the I — from a lot of indie authors.

No I’ve no direct part, other than contributing some copies to the giveaway. I just think this is a pretty great idea and want to help spread the word. Really some quite remarkable writers have elected to eschew the traditional model for publishing and this is one more way to help people find them.

So today if you visit Indie Author Land you’ll find an interview of yours truly. Though, in frank honesty, there’s nothing in that interview that the regulars here don’t already know, those newer folks can drop by there and learn a little about my book and myself.

Everyone should go there and check out the site for all the other people they’ve interviewed. A lot of talent and amazing people out there who’ve elected to eschew the traditional publishing model and this is another avenue for finding them and learning that their work exists so that we might purchase and appreciate it.

So, go forth, enjoy. Read. Just don’t forget, whatever you find there and decide to buy, rate them. From wherever you buy their book leave a rating, maybe even a review, but certainly a rating. Even if you don’t get it on Amazon try to leave a rating there — it has profound impact on their visibility there.

UPADTE: as of right now the interview isn’t up, but neither is anything else dated 24 June. Either they’re just this side of the international date line, or they haven’t discovered the wonders of scheduled posting (I see that their site is powered by WordPress, same as mine). Either way, I shall recheck the site periodically and link back as soon as there’s a link to provide.

UPDATE: Well, it’s definitely the 24th for the bloggers over at Indie Author Land — there’ve a paranormal story dated today posted now. Not to mention the fact that I believe it is now today everywhere except the few places creeping up on tomorrow. I’ll be contacting them shortly to find out if there has been a reschedule or other problem that I was either not contacted about, or that got eaten by my email’s spam filter.

UPDATE: Or I could go to the site to contact them — sincerely I did believe something had gone wrong or simply been rescheduled without my knowing — and saw my lovely cover sitting there! So, the link: http://www.indieauthorland.com/archives/4247

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I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place. I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level.

~~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

J. R. R. Tolkien in his introduction to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings:
“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.”

"Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!"

~~ Gore Vidal

“There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland.”

― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

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